Till Death Do Us Part
A/N:
SPOILER ALERT— DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN PotC: AWE!!!!
I came away from watching the first preview showing of AWE with an upset stomach and cold chills from that awful ending. The rest of the movie rocked, but why did Ted and Terry have to do THAT? Did they take writing lessons from Joss Whedon who believes that nobody can ever be happy for more than a few seconds? ARRGH! I couldn't stand it. I had to re-write it. I'm SURE I can do better.
Apologies to those who've been reading "So Much To Learn". That terrible ending has haunted me since I saw the movie. The story came to me early this morning and I had to get it out before I could continue working on "So Much…".
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Davy Jones hefted the sword in his claw and considered it for a second. Nice sword, he thought again. Will, who had been stunned by a blow from Jones seconds earlier, lay against the bulkhead. Before Will could move, Jones thrust the sword into his chest. Will felt the blade cut through skin and muscle, scrape against bone and pierce his heart. He was surprised at how little it hurt. He looked at the sword and recognized it as the one he had made for Elizabeth's father to present to Norrington to commemorate his promotion to the admiralty. He had a fading thought that the sword was a very efficient weapon. He became dimly aware of a distant sound, and turned his head toward it. The sound was Elizabeth screaming, begging, pleading desperately, frantically, hysterically.
Jack stood frozen on the deck with Jones' heart in one hand, and his broken sword in the other, ready to stab the heart and assume command of the Dutchman. Immortality and fame would be his forever. But he hesitated, looking from the heart to Will and Elizabeth and back again.
Will opened his eyes and looked at Elizabeth, his wife of only a few minutes. He faintly smiled at her, shook his head almost imperceptibly, and closed his eyes again. He let the river of his blood take him away, and Elizabeth felt his body go limp in her arms. Her screams of grief should have torn the ship asunder.
Jack still stood holding the heart and sword. He watched Elizabeth collapse over Will's body, sobs wracking her thin frame. He heard her say the words "my husband" and "widow". When had they gotten married? HOW had they gotten married? They hadn't been married when he left the Pearl only hours before. Inside Jack, that small part of him that Elizabeth had identified as a good man so very long ago on the deck of the Pearl stirred. Suddenly he realized that it didn't matter when or how they had married. The fact was that one of his friends was dead and the other had been left a widow on her wedding day.
Before he had time to think over his actions, Jack leapt to Will's side and knelt next to his bloody body. Dropping Jones' heart to the deck next to him, he wrapped Will's limp hand around the hilt of the broken sword. Holding Will's hand in place, he plunged the sword into the heart.
At the same moment, Elizabeth, blind with grief, raised herself up off of Will's body, spun around and seized the knife that Will had used to pin his father to the bulkhead of the ship. She screamed "I will not be left behind, Will Turner!" and plunged the knife into her own chest. She slumped forward onto Will's shoulder and lay against him crying.
Jones staggered when the sword pierced his detached heart. His scream was unearthly, something from far beyond the grave. He lurched unsteadily, hit the rail and pitched over the side into the churning whirlpool where he disappeared from sight. Immediately the curse that had hovered over the Dutchman began to lift. Fish-headed crewmen who had been bound to Jones vanished. The dank fog that constantly surrounded the ship lifted, and the ship itself seemed to sail a little livelier as if a heavy weight had been taken from her.
Will's head raised and he shook it slightly to clear it. He took in the sight of his hand wrapped around Jack's sword, which was still pinning Jones' heart to the deck. He immediately knew what had happened to him. Then he realized Elizabeth was lying across him. He pulled Norrington's sword out of his chest and threw it to the deck, then lifted Elizabeth so he could see her. She was still alive, but just barely. He saw Bootstrap's knife still in her chest, her own hand still on it. Will held her tenderly. "Oh, Elizabeth, why?" She opened her eyes a little and smiled at him. "I said I wouldn't be left behind." Her eyes closed again, and her body began to relax as the life poured out of it.
Will took her face in his hand and shook her. "Will you serve before the mast on the Dutchman with me as her captain?" Elizabeth's eyes fluttered open again. "Yes" she whispered, "for as long as you are captain." And then she went totally limp in his arms.
It was Will's turn to cry as he rocked her lifeless body.
Suddenly she stirred. Her eyes opened and she looked into Will's eyes with full knowledge of where and what she was now. She smiled. "Until death do us part. It doesn't sound so final now, does it?" She put her arms around him and they kissed.
The small part of Jack's personality that qualified as 'a good man' got a little bigger even as his dreams of immortality faded away.
The Dutchman's mast was still tangled with that of the Black Pearl, as the two ships spun around and around the maelstrom. On board the Pearl, a cannon fired as the pirates attempted to free themselves. The top of the Dutchman's mast splintered into bits, and the ships pulled apart. The Dutchman began to slide further down into the whirlpool.
"Jack, you must go" said Will. "Go, or stay with us forever."
"'m not ready for that just yet, mate." replied Jack with a small smile.
Elizabeth grabbed Jack and gave him a hug. "Thank you, Jack. You must promise me that someday we will be the ones to ferry you across!"
Jack crossed his heart with his hand. "I'll do m'best to die at sea instead of by the noose, I can assure you of that, love! But not for a long, long time!" He kissed her quickly on the forehead, squeezed Will's shoulder briefly in farewell, and turned to look for an escape route. Quickly grabbing a dangling line, he swung himself into the air, transferred to another pair of lines and went floating away across the sky on a billowing sail, touching down into the sea just beyond the bow of the Pearl.
The Dutchman went down in the maelstrom seconds later.
She came back from the depths during the brief but bloody battle that followed. Will and his small crew manned the supernatural ship with ease. It was almost as if she could read his mind. After destroying the Endeavour, and along with it Cutler Beckett, the Dutchman floated lazily in the now calm sea, the maelstrom having disappeared as soon as the Endeavour exploded.
Bootstrap stood next to his son, all traces of sea life gone from his now-human visage.
He smiled, the first real smile to cross his face in many years. "Orders, cap'n?"
Will smiled back at him. "Take the helm, Bo'sun Turner and attend to our ship's business! I've got a wedding night to celebrate!" He lifted Elizabeth in his arms and turned toward the captain's cabin. On the sea with my own ship, married to Elizabeth, together forever, and eternally young. All in all, not a bad day's work, he thought. He kissed his bride as he carried her over the threshold and kicked the door shut behind him.
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A/N: Take THAT, Ted and Terry……
A/N2: It has been pointed out to me since I published this that the writers originally included an explanation in the script that Will would only be cursed to captain the Dutchman for ten years, after which he would be free again if Elizabeth remained loyal to him and was waiting for him at the end of the ten years. That part was apparently cut out of the movie due to time constraints. I guess they thought that the mostly unintelligible dialogue that went on between Davy Jones and Tia Dalma in the brig would be enough explanation. It might have worked if the two characters hadn't had such thick accents that half their words were garbled…
I'm relieved in a way, because the thought of Elizabeth only seeing her beloved for 4 or 5 days out of her entire life pained me greatly. I still don't like the idea of them having to spend the first ten years of their marriage apart (hopeless romantic here, I know that would have killed me). But I'm really disappointed that the producers released the movie with such an important plot point so poorly clarified that many of the moviegoers came away with an entirely incorrect idea of what really happened.
Even though it turned out to be unnecessary, I still think my ending has some merit as an alternate. :)